The Understanding Of Madrasas As Traditional Institutions Is Erroneous; They Have Been Shaped By The Modern Colonial Context
By
Arshad Alam, New Age Islam
21 July
2021
The Understanding
That Madrasas Belong To The Private Sphere Of Muslims Is A Recent Innovation
Main
Points:
• There
was no such distinction in the medieval Muslim world.
• Curriculum
has also undergone significant changes.
• Deoband
banished the study of rational sciences which itself was an innovation.
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One of the
enduring myths about madrasas is that they have remained the same since
centuries. If one asks any manager of a madrasa, one gets the answer that the
institution has remained unchanged since it was established during the time of
prophet Muhammad. This assertion not just flies in the face of known
historicity but also runs against common sense. Partly this argument is made by
Muslims to prove that madrasas have been part and parcel of Muslim culture
since its inception and hence the advocacy to reform it is an attack on their
historical sensitivity. Indeed, this argument has bailed them from state
intrusions, as they have successfully convinced the Indian state that as the
locus of Muslim cultural expression, madrasas are the internal affairs of the
community.
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In fact,
this understanding of Islamic education as belonging to the private sphere of
Muslims is itself a recent innovation. The distinction between private and
public was for the first time introduced by the British colonial state. This
distinction made religion into a ‘private’ matter and left it in the hands of
respective communities. Deoband, established in 1867, adopted this distinction
because this colonial logic served them well. They could always argue that
since religion was the private matter of Muslims and that they were its
custodians. Any state interference in this sphere was henceforth to be
resisted. This distinction existed nowhere in the Muslim world. In fact, in
India, matters of religion always had a public character. Moreover, in other
contexts, the Ulama have always argued that Islam is a complete religion which
regulates all aspects of life, be it public or private. At the same time, a
colonial distinction was used because it suited their design.
The idea of
the madrasa has also undergone change. Today madrasas are primarily understood
as centres of imparting religious learning. But was this the case since its
inception or is this understanding of recent origin? It seems that this
co-relation of madrasa with Islamic learning alone is not centuries old but can
be traced, again, to the establishment of Deoband madrasa. Before that, Islamic
education, was not organized and was largely the outcome of individual efforts
of piety. This is not to say that there were no madrasas established by the
king or the state, but again, they were not institutions in their own right as
they remained personalistic in character.
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There was
no fixed or standardized curriculum; it depended on the predilection of
individual teachers. A teacher could be a master in a particular collection of
hadith and students would travel to his place to learn that particular
collection of hadith from him. But it was not necessary that such teachers
would be masters of religious subjects alone. Teachers were known for their knowledge
of medicine (Tibb), astronomy, etc. and students desirous of such specialized
knowledge would seek them out. For much of the medieval period, there was no
such specialization that exists today. Most religious teachers would also
dabble in the practice of medicine.
The first
push towards standardization seems to be the curriculum called Dars e Nizami,
devised in the early 18th century at the Firangi Mahal madrasa in Lucknow. This
curriculum for the first time fixed a number of years in which the syllabus had
to be completed. Also, the curriculum was decidedly in favour of Manqulat
(rational sciences). The content of Manqulat (revealed sciences) was
kept to a minimum; the Quran and the Hadith were studied only through one
commentary each. This process of standardization seems to be halted after the
death of Aurangzeb (1707) but the curriculum was so popular and hegemonic that
all future efforts called their curricula as the Dars e Nizami.
Even
Deoband did so. Although it effected a fundamental change in the character of
this syllabus. Deoband threw out the rational content in its entirety while at
the same time it expanded the corpus of revealed sciences to include all the
six classical traditions of hadith scholarship. Indeed, the founder of the
Madrasa, Qasim Nanotwi categorically argued that there was no merit in studying
the rational sciences except with the intention of refuting it. There was also
active hostility towards the study of philosophy too which was dubbed as
un-Islamic. So, in Deoband, we see a significant shift in the idea of madrasa
which has stayed with us till now. Henceforth, madrasas were solely to be
regarded as religious institutions. The contemporary understanding of madrasas
as centres of religious learning alone has therefore much to do with Deoband.
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The context
in which this change took place was colonialism and the defeat of Muslim power.
For the first time in centuries, the Muslim elite was without state power. For
the religious elite, this loss of power was because Muslims had lost the path of
the ‘true’ Islam. Taking away political power was God’s way of punishing them.
That’s why it became important to educate Muslims in God’s ways and make them
true followers of Islam. Education became the critical element in the arsenal
to conscientise the masses. But this education was supposed to be only based on
Quran and hadith. This change in the idea of the madrasa has been detrimental
to Muslim interests but then that is another story.
The
argument that madrasas have remained unchanged is simply bogus. It has
undergone changes in terms of its curriculum, aims and methods from time to
time. The present madrasas system therefore should not be understood as
‘traditional’ but rather as shaped by the modern colonial context.
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Arshad
Alam is a columnist with NewAgeIslam.com
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-society/madasa-traditional-colonial/d/125108